Silver Rain (8 page)
But she ate every bit. She didn't light the lamp or go out to sit with Nan, who she could hear knitting, her chair squeaking from time to time. Instead, Elsie lay back in the bed that hadn't seemed warm since Mother had been gone.
While she had been napping, Dog Bob had crept into the bedroom. He lay in a warm lump across her feet. The man who had stolen him wouldn't have let him go if she hadn't stood up to him. She couldn't imagine what it would have been like, coming home without her uncle's dog.
She swung her legs out of bed. Her toes curled when they touched the chilly linoleum. Nan would have called Scoop a bugger in a bag for not showing up this morning. She wanted to tell him how clever she had been to get Dog Bob back, but there'd be real trouble if Nan found out that she had been anywhere near the shantytown, especially as the Reverend Hampton, who Nan admired more than anyone else, had told her not to.
Scoop would like to know how well things had turned out, Elsie knew. But instead of getting dressed, she sat on the edge of the bed with a draft creeping across her bare legs. Refusing to stay inside where they belonged were the tears that Elsie had managed not to cry when she had been surrounded by the hoboes in the shantytown, and she'd seen Dog Bob at the end of that rope, struggling to make his way back to her. Elsie grabbed the pillow and held it against her face as she cried and cried.
She held it there until it was damp and cold with tears, and the place in her chest where they came from was all hollow and empty. She cried into the pillow until Nan's knitting needles had stopped clicking, and Elsie heard her get up from Father's creaky chair and go outside to the outhouse.
She took a deep breath and wiped her nose on the corner of the sheet. She put the pillow back on the bed with the wet side down. Then she got dressed, even though her whole body felt heavy and tired. And much older than when she'd got up from this same bed just that morning.
She pushed the curtain aside and took her bowl and spoon into the living room. She scrubbed her face with the damp washcloth and was spreading it over the edge of the washbowl when Nan came back into the house. “Feeling better, are you?” She picked up a rag from the table and chose a spoon from the pile of silverware. “Thought these might fetch a dollar or two.” Nan rubbed each piece hard before returning it to the pile on the table.
Elsie leaned one hip against the table. “I thought I'd go and visit Scoop.”
“One minute you're in bed asleep, being mollycoddled. Napping in the middle of a perfectly good day!” said Nan. “Now you want to go out and play?”
“I'm feeling better. Thank you for the corn mush.”
“You could be helping me with this.” Nan put a spoon back on the pile, then picked it up again, blew on it and gave it another brisk rub.
“Please, Nan.” Elsie put one arm around her grandmother's waist. She reached up to give her a kiss.
Nan shifted away. “That's enough of that. All right, then. Skedaddle if you must. Home by supper, mind.”
Elsie shoved her hat down hard on her head and flung her jacket over her shoulder. She put one hand on the door handle and stood aside, waiting for Dog Bob to go through the door ahead of her. But instead of getting up to join her like he usually did, he just lay under the table as if he was not planning to come out anytime soon.
S
coop answered the door, his nose red and his hair sticking out all over the place. “Don' yell at be,” he said. “I bin sick.” He stepped aside so Elsie could make her way around two bicycles, a shopping basket, three boots and a baby blue sweater heaped at the foot of the stairs.
In the kitchen, Scoop's mother was sitting in the big Windsor chair with her feet up on the table
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on the table!
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reading a
Ladies Home Companion
magazine. “Don't expect me to get up,” said Mrs. Styles. “I've been canning. You like applesauce?”
Elsie's mouth got all watery just at the sound of it.
“Two whole crates of apples last week. The father of one of our boarders grows them in the Fraser Valley.” Mrs. Styles reached behind her head to retie her apron strings behind her neck. “Runty, many of them. Scabby, the others.” She pushed up the nest of hair that just fell back over her ear again. “Enough for eleven jars though. One for you, if you want it.”
She nodded toward Scoop, who sat huddled in a chair. “Our boy's got a nasty cold. We sent him to bed. But that didn't last.”
When his mother leaned across the table to ruffle Scoop's hair, he muttered, “Gedoff,” and pulled back out of her reach. “Bud I'b bedder now.” He sniffed loudly.
Mrs. Styles eased herself up from her chair with the kind of sigh Nan made when she got out of bed in the morning. “I'll leave you to it. There's bread in the bin and jam in the pantry. Ernest, cold or no cold, you be a good host. Find a snack for your friend. I'm off upstairs for forty winks.”
Elsie could hear thumps and laughter overhead, but she couldn't tell if it was the Noises or the lodgers. How could you sleep with all that noise?
“Nice to see you, lovie,” said Mrs. Styles. She gave the brim of Elsie's hat a flick. “Come and see us again soon.”
When the door had closed, Elsie poked her finger in a hole in the red-and-white-checkered tablecloth. “Where were you?” she said.
“Whadda you bean?” asked Scoop.
“We were supposed to go to the shantytown. I waited and waited. Then I had to go on my own.”
“Without be?” Scoop hacked a lump of bread from a loaf with a black blistery crust. “Ma wouldn't let be out of the house. Because ob by cold.” He carved a second piece of bread, then slathered them both with jam
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the blackberry jam Elsie had helped make last fall with the berries they'd picked from along the railway tracks, where the shantytown was now.
“I had an adventure,” she told him. “I was in a tight spot for a bit. But it all turned out well.” Elsie knew she was using Nan's words; she couldn't think how else to describe what happened. She was still scared in a shaky kind of way. But proud too.
Scoop dumped the bread and jam on the table and plunked down on a chair. “Go on. Hab the biggest.”
Elsie took a slab of bread and spread the glistening jam evenly right to the edge with one finger. Not all globbed in the middle the way Scoop had doled it out. She sniffed, inhaling the sweet musty smell of blackberries. If she took the time to smell the food before she ate it, it seemed to make it go further.
“So. You gonna tell be?” asked Scoop.
Elsie could just make out his question around his mouthful of bread and jam. She took a little bite of her bread, chewed each bite twenty times, and only then did she swallow it. “Me and Dog Bob went to the shantytown, and there were these hoboes. When I asked them if they knew Father, they just laughed.” She took another bite of bread, chewed slowly and put her slice back on the table. “I don't know if they'd have told me if they did know him. But I don't think he was there.” She pulled the crust away from what was left of her slice of bread, leaving just the soft white middle. “One of them stole Dog Bob.” She rolled the bread into a lump.
“Ged away!” Scoop's eyes were big and round. They were red from his cold and very bright.
“He did! A man had him tied up to a rope. He wouldn't let go. But I made him.” Elsie sat up straight in her chair and looked steadily at Scoop.
Scoop ducked his head and asked in a quiet voice, “Did you cry?” As if it would be all right if she had. But he hoped she hadn't.
“I did not.” When Elsie thumped her hand on the table, the breadboard bounced a little. “I was too mad.” She brought her hand down again and squished a chunk of bread. “I told them they should be ashamed of themselves. All of them. I yelled at them!” Elsie felt a giggle move along her throat, up into her mouth. It escaped in a loud shout of glee. “I told them they should be ashamed of themselves!”
Scoop laughed too, spluttering flecks of chewed bread onto the table. When his laughter turned to a cough
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just like the shacker's at the shantytown
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Elsie jumped up and pounded his back until he stopped.
He elbowed her aside. “I think you broke my rib,” he said dramatically. Then he laughed again. “I wish I had bin there. You told 'em off. Just like your nan would hab done!”
He shoved the jam jar away, tipped his chair back and propped his knees against the table. “But you should hab waited for be to get bedder. We're a team. We could hab gone together.” He took another bite, staring at the bread in his hand as he chewed.
Elsie grabbed a rag from the sink and swiped at the table. “You're disgusting. You've got bread and jam spit all over the table.”
“Disgusting yourself. Eat that bread or Mother will think I was wasting food. So what habbened? Did you rescue Dog Bob?” Scoop's mouth was so red with jam, he looked like he'd been attacked by the Noises' lipstick.
“He's home safe and sound under the kitchen table. He won't come out.”
“You should hab waited until I could come. I could hab interviewed those fellas. Found out bore about the life of a hobo.”
“I think the Reverend Hampton is right. It feels dangerous there.” said Elsie. She knew how much Scoop hated missing out on an adventure. But she'd had one on her own, and lived to tell the tale, as Nan would say. Now she knew she could take care of herself wherever she went. But adventures were important to Scoop. Until she grew nubs like the Noises, he would be her best friend, and they needed to have adventures together. “How about we track down the story about the dance marathon?” she asked. “And this time we'll both go.”
“I'
m ready when you are, pardner,” said Scoop as he cut himself another slice of bread without asking Elsie if she wanted one.
“We can't go today,” Elsie told him. “Your mom won't let you, with that cold. Anyway, it's too late. And tomorrow Nan's going over to Mrs. Tipson's to change the shelf paper in her pantry. If I go and help, maybe I can earn ten cents.”
“Thad'll ged you into the barathon. How 'bout I budder up the Noises and baybe they'll gibe be a dibe. Or the boarders, if I polish their shoes.” Scoop's nose was streaming again. He swiped one arm across his face and sniffed loudly.
Elsie brushed the crumbs off the table and screwed the lid back on the jam jar. “Let's go on Sunday. But I have to do my homework first,” she said. “Did you do yours?”
In Nature class, Miss Beeston had drawn a diagram of a leaf on the blackboard, marking the ribs and veins, the stipules and blades. At home, they were supposed to find a leaf and diagram it the way she'd done on the board. When Scoop said that he would rather draw a dead body as if he could see straight through it, Miss Beeston had told him to follow the instructions to the letter for once.
“I haben't done by hobework. I bin sick, you know,” he told Elsie again.
She rolled her eyes. Her leaf was pressed between the pages of Nan's Bible.
She pushed her chair back and brushed the crumbs from her pants. If Dog Bob were here, he'd have cleaned up the floor after their snack. “I gotta go now,” she told Scoop. “Do your homework so we can check out that dance marathon. Hear?”
“Okay, pardner.”
He was still sitting at the table as Elsie opened the door to leave.
Outside the dance hall stood a billboard with
Fifth Day
slapped across it. Elsie could hear music coming from inside and a loud voice sounding like someone giving orders. Someone laughing. “Nan gave me a dime. Where's yours?” she asked Scoop.
His nose was still red, and he kept sniffing. Even though the sun on the street was warm, he flapped his arms up and down as if he were cold. “Don't got one.”
“I thought you were going to ask your sisters. Or the lodgers.”
“I was too sick to shine shoes. That's hard work. I thought you said you'd get one for helping that lady in your old house?”
Elsie hadn't told Scoop that she'd run out on Nan in the middle of the job. She couldn't bring herself to explain how humiliating it had been to crawl all over what used to be her own kitchen, to be cooped up in the pantry where she had helped her father build the shelves not so long ago. And she wasn't about to tell Scoop that Nan had said she wasn't much help and hardly deserved a dime for being so childish, then finally gave her one grudgingly only because
A promise is a promise
. Elsie hadn't dared ask for another, Nan was so aerated. Sometimes you could not tell your best friend everything. “I thought we were just coming to get the lay of the land,” she said. “You said that real newspapermen do their research first.”